A common telephone experience is dialing a number, only to be told to wait while the operators are handling other calls. This message is usually a prerecorded announcement informing the hapless caller that "all operators are busy. Please remain on the line and your call will be answered by the first available attendant."
Wait or call back? A dilemma without answer. How long will the wait be? How important is the information (or the order for goods or services) to the caller? To add injury to the situation, often the called party takes this opportunity to play commercials to the captive listener! To add further insult, often the call is long distance and the caller is paying for the commercial!
From the called party's point of view there is lost business because some percentage of callers hang up and do not call back. In many situations, the incoming call is being paid for by the called party and this "holding" time is costly to the called party especially when many calls are placed on hold routinely. In either event, a great deal of inconvenience and frustration is involved for those who do call back, especially because there is no guarantee that the second call can be completed either. This, then, is a no-win situation.
Thus, a need exists in the art for a system which eliminates the need for callers to decide whether to hold or hang up and which converts a no-win situation into one in which both parties can be satisfied.
A further need exists in the art for such a solution which does not cost either party time or effort or significant installation costs. It must also maximize the effective use of time by both the calling and the called parties, while reducing the communication cost to at least one of the parties.
In some situations, for example immediately after a commercial has been aired on TV, a business is inundated with a very large volume of incoming calls. In this situation, all of the available operators, or other communication resources, become swamped. Usually, the incoming trunks to the business cannot handle the temporary calling volume and many callers get busy tone. This, again, is frustrating to the caller and is potential lost business to the called party.
Thus, a need exists in the art for a system which reduces to a minimum the trunk holding time during high volume periods, while still processing the calls in an orderly and efficient manner.
In still another context, many communications today are effected between computers, or between other electronic equipment, such as facsimile machines. These communications do not always require human intervention and thus often can be accomplished at off-hour times to take advantage of reduced traffic and reduced costs. This situation can also occur across wide time zones where data transfer which is convenient for one party is not convenient for the other.
Thus, a need also exists in the art for a system which allows a calling party, or a called party, to schedule the communication to take place at some time in the future which is mutually agreed upon. Such a system must be capable of operating without human intervention.
In a still further context, many callers call into a facility, get put on hold, and then after some period of time (for which someone is paying) reach an attendant (or other resource, only to find out that the transaction they desired, or the information they wanted was not available at the called facility. The calling party is then told to call some other number and the process of waiting on hold begins again.
Thus a need exists in the art for a system which allows a called facility to identify callers, establish a time of call back and then handle that call in an efficient manner for all parties, all without requiring the calling party to requeue at another called facility.